Materials for sustainable development
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Materials for sustainable development Martin L. Green, Laura Espinal, Enrico Traversa, and Eric J. Amis Many technologies in the materials, manufacturing, energy, and water sectors that currently provide important benefits to humanity cannot continue indefinitely and must be directed toward a more sustainable path. In this article, we introduce the concept of sustainable development, discuss the critical roles that materials science plays in this field, and summarize the contents of the articles in this special issue of MRS Bulletin.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. –Greek proverb
This maxim demonstrates that sustainable development is not a new concept, at least according to its most popular definition: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (from the so-called Brundtland Commission Report, published in 1987).*,1 Why then has sustainable development come so much to the fore in the
* In speaking of “sustainable development,” the Brundtland report referred to sustainable economic development. In this issue, we take a much broader view of sustainable development, including a range of activities that reflect the spirit of this famous pronouncement. Further, we understand the noun “sustainability” to be the asymptotically approachable, but ultimately unachievable, result of continual sustainable development. More on the Brundtland definition: It does not define sustainable development scientifically and requires that we know, or at least accurately estimate, what the needs of future generations will be. Had our Paleolithic ancestors taken Brundtland to heart, they might have carefully monitored their use of obsidian and flint and stockpiled such stones for future generations. Of course, the Stone Age did not end because humans ran out of stones, but because they found a better substitute, as our species always has.
past few decades? Perhaps it is the new buzzword due to growing concerns about the scale of the human impact on the planet. Indeed, the dramatic increases in global population that have occurred ever since the Industrial Revolution are expected to continue, and through the burning of fossil fuels to support the energy needs of this growing population, humankind has liberated a quantity of carbon (as carbon dioxide) in the past two hundred and fifty years that it took our planet about two hundred and fifty million years to sequester. That factor of a million—the price humankind unwittingly paid for the massive industrialization that enabled the advanced civilization many of us now enjoy—has shifted Earth’s biosphere to a new equilibrium. Every human endeavor is affected by the ramifications of sustainable development, because none of our material resources are infinite and only a few sources of energy (solar, wind, hydro, tidal, and geothermal) are sustainable. Sustainable development is a huge field that captures the concepts of environm
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